Mike MundtPITTSBURGH
New Century Production (NCP) is a full-service mobile television production company and a wholly owned subsidiary of NEP Broadcasting. We have been an Ikegami camera customer for many years, having purchased our first in 1987. We have been using these cameras on practically all of our trucks ever since—and this will include our latest HD truck, NCP XI, which is currently being constructed at the NEP systems integration facility.
BEST OF TWO WORLDS
Ikegami's CMOS-equipped HDK-79EC is the company's first HD camera system that operates in either 720p or 1080i as a native format without cross conversion and this is an important consideration for many of our clients.
With the HDK-79ECs in our trucks, we can provide our clients with pristine high-resolution unconverted video in any format they might desire—all done at the touch of a button.
The cameras have been so well-received that we've now upgrading our HD trucks to these cameras, one by one. The camera chains that are being installed on our NCP XI are actually the third set of Ikegami HDK-79EC cameras that we've purchased.
NEW CMOS SENSOR MAKES BIG DIFFERENCE
The new CMOS image sensor used in these cameras provides real state-of-the-art performance in terms of sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio, saturation, contrast depth and error-correction. And the best part is that all of this is completely seamless to our clients. They tend to focus on the stunning picture quality that they're getting. And they know that this video quality is visible in their viewers' living rooms.
Our Ikegami cameras have traditionally been very reliable, requiring little maintenance. This is an essential attribute for any equipment in a mobile production truck. Life on the road is a very rough-and-tumble existence; however, Ikegami cameras have always stood up very well in the long haul. We know that, inevitably, we're going to have a day when someone's going to drop or smash a camera, and then it becomes a question of how quickly you can recover. Of course, this is largely dependent on the type of service and support that you get from the company that provided the camera.
Fortunately, during our experience with the company, we have found Ikegami's level of support and commitment to be stellar.
By outfitting our vehicles with Ikegami cameras, we have achieved the combination of brilliant imagery and solid dependability that mobile HD broadcasting requires. We've consistently found Ikegami's cameras to be outstanding in a punishing environment, and we keep coming back for more of these cameras whenever we build a new truck.
Mike Mundt is director of engineering at New Century Productions, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEP Broadcasting. He may be contacted atmundt@ncpvideo.com.
For additional information, contact Ikegami Electronics at 201-368-9171 or visitwww.ikegami.com.
